I can see three skies
on the interior of my eyelids,
and I just got a text from
my friends at a party; it's
well past dark and it feels like
Genoa and Home and London
all in one. I keep
waking up and
dozing off again;
******* fits and
trazodone dreams.
I feel like I'm trapped
in a time loop; Groundhog Day,
but every day I love a new
person,
but you
always come around,
always on my mind
and I
do not know how to keep you
out of my brain, how to
keep you near me.

"what's that? you can't get out of your bed?
too weak to be alive, too lazy to be dead?
well! take your zoloft effectively
just inhibit reuptake selectively
and soon you'll have the energy
to end your life impulsively
or be rid of feelings entirely
a chipper, cheery half-zombie"

"your panicking fits interfere with your day?
i'll lay out a feast, a benzo-buffet
ativan, klonopin, xanax oh my!
not just for those who are too scared to fly!
pop two and kiss all of your worries goodbye
and your memory, too, if you come to rely
on hours spent watching your life pass by
just try and object through that stubborn tongue-tie"

"your circadian rhythm is not quite right
you're asleep with the sun and awake in the night
so take one of these twice before closing your eyes
and wait for the dreams that will doubtless arise
too vivid and real to know truth from lies
and the nightmares will be an unpleasant  surprise
but stopping abruptly is duly unwise
so just find your stars in trazodone skies"

At first I was a little effexor,
though my pulse hurried to get cipralex.


My dreams were ****** and clonex,
so trazodone I could barely feel my fingertips,
yet zodorm enough to wake up in a cuckoo's nest.


Pulling me out of my psychiatric diagnosis
was never as easy as pulling me out of my morals

and clothes.

dear doctor crombie
rhymes with cranberry remember
that’s what you told me so that i
would remember your name
and you chuckled like that was
the most clever thing in the world
but all i cared about was getting the hell
out of the **** psychiatric ward because being
in that place made me want to try
and **** myself all over again
which is totally the opposite of
what i was hoping for when i agreed to be
admitted but i digress

because what stuck
with me more than the dismal room
i was put in that was either
as hot as hell-fire or freezing cold
to the point where i decided that i’d rather
be able to see my breath than be soaked in sweat
and your ******-*** joke
was the fact that on our first meeting
you told me that you thought my
coming out as transgender was
nothing more
than a diversion tactic

now dr. crombie
i want you to put yourself in my place
i was 16 years old
stimming and shaking as you stared me down
and then labeled me as nothing more than
a diversion tactic
and that crushed me
it had only been a few days since
i swallowed 40 trazodone and accepted
the fact that i would not be waking up again
and that was all you had to say to me
a diversion tactic
you pulled down the very core
of what i was in two words
and my god i hated you so much
in that moment

because dr. crombie
i had known i was not a girl
since i was 7 years old
and i held that inside me for 9 long years
that almost killed me
because *******
i knew that i wasn’t a girl for longer
than i had lived as a girl
and you just didn’t care
you took what i had given to you
laying myself out before you
because i was a scared
mentally ill teenager
that had just survived a
******* suicide attempt
and all you had to say
that my being transgender
was a diversion tactic

and even now
three years later
that still haunts me
the fact that you
a heterosexual cisgender male
born with a ***** and a flat chest
decided to chalk up my
9 years of hell to nothing more than
a diversion tactic

so dr. crombie
tell me what do you think
i was diverting from exactly
when i had willingly been admitted
to a sterile-smelling hellscape
where i was forced to relive
how i tried to forcibly end my life
every day in the ******* little therapy groups
that made me feel so much older and hollowed out

tell me doctor
what exactly was i diverting from
what was i trying to hide from and behind
by putting myself through the hell
of being near constantly dead-named
and misgendered and having to pay
up into the double digits just to change
my legal my deadname
and gender marker from an F to an M
and being told that i was technically still a girl
and being asked why i couldn’t just be a tomboy
a lesbian
a ****
a butch
why couldn’t i just be a girl huh
why did i have to be a boy

so tell me
dr. crombie
rhymes with cranberry
just what exactly was i
******* diverting from

If there's nothing they can do,
nothing I can be taught
in order to push the cold away,
please tell me at least the food
will be okay.

The last time, sauce dripping
over my teeth like I am supposed
to sink down into it, pour myself over
the meaty softness of someone else's body
and rest, being absorbed
into their consciousness until
I am nothing more than
a weight on their tongue.

Tell me I'll be able to sleep. They were
always leaving the door open,
the lights still on, I can't sleep knowing
that any moment something could happen
and it could come for me.

Tell me the faucets will pour out
cold water so I can wake up. Tell me
there will be a mirror so I can watch
the lessons taking hold
across my jawline.

I need to know they'll let me in
to see the doctor. Not the one
who tells me everything will be
all right, but the one who has
a plan, who lays everything out
in the simplest terms, so I can
understand.

The one whose mouth zigzags
around broken syllables
like a crooked train track, spitting
Lorazepam, Citalopram, Trazodone,
I don't understand the language
but I know, he does this every day,
points nonsense words at shadows
hoping someday we'll understand.

Maybe I could. If I could only
pull the sauce out from my eardrums,
clear the junk from my tongue and
the wreckage from my teeth;

Mother,
if the food is good,
then maybe someday,
I'll be able
to taste it for
myself.

Oddly enough lately I have been tired
So I don't need your help to sleep
But yet I still take you
Because sleep isn't my only problem
Being happy is too

Today we learned the alphabet.
We learned all about consonants,
And vowels, and about how you get
Different words with different sounds
When you compound them.

We learned all about how to end our sentences
With periods,
Except when we intend to indicate a pause
Or a breath, a second to emphasize
The next words,
For that you want a comma.

Next we learned about persuasive writing,
And about how citing is imperative to MLA,
And that Emily has to sign her life away
To the Navy, because there’s no space
For those whose grades fluctuate.
Then we walked a stage
And graduated and got new caps,
The kind that are flat with a tassel.
And then we worked so that we could
Afford the Trazodone to help us
Cope with the sadness.

Finally we were taught how to
Press the red button if we need
The nurse and she’s out of our sight,
And how to lean against the frame
So there’s space for our sheets
To be changed,
And how this machine keeps beeping
Faster and faster and how
Everyone’s seeming uneasy
And how their voices keep getting farther away
As if they’re aboard a ship on the easterlies
And how easy it is to fall asleep
After the beeping ceases.

the tears they stick to my face
burning like salt in a fresh cut
though mine were never very deep
they were always fresh and there
and there was blood all over my clothes
mainly my long sleeves and sweatshirts
i remember the first time i bled through a shirt
at school and the butter knives that i hoarded
like i was gonna fight off my demons with little
ridged pieces of plastic
but ****** they kept me company
when mother dearest was either too drunk or ******
to realize my first cut
i mean come on lady it bled like a stuck pig
i cut really close to the vein that time
sometimes i wish i had had the guts to
go deep enough that first time
and i never would have had to deal with
four years of self-destruction
maybe if my mom had pressed me for the truth
but it’s more my fault than hers
though for once
that is not the reason why i am crying

i am not enough of a boy
but i’m too much of a boy to be a girl
and i’m too much of a girl to be a boy
but ****** who are you to label me
you haven’t asked me how this feels
you only cared right after i tried to **** myself
and only then i’m convinced you only asked because
my little sister was in the next room
and the doctor
his name rhymed with cranberry
and i hated him right away
he told my my being transgender
was just a diversion tactic
like buddy dood sir mister ******* listen to me
i am so ******* open about my mental illness
it’s all i talk about
i am literally a broken ******* record
i am loud and out and proud about everything that
is going on with me
both inside and outside
and if i wanted to create a “diversion”
i would have just slit my throat
because then i would have made my mother happy
by not being able to correct her when she continued
to call me her sweet little precious little
baby girl

you say i can’t be a boy
because of the clothes i wear
and the little tics i have
how i do jazz hands when i’m excited or happy
and this is a rare emotion
you should be proud that i am an emotional guy
instead of just a rock
a pillar of broken pieces
and yelling and grabbing and scars
because you and daddy dearest
you taught me that i should keep everything
inside of me
because you do not understand what is happening
to your little girl
and neither do i
but i do understand enough to know that
since i was seven
i was just a kid
i have known i was different
and it was okay for other people to be a lesbian
to be gay or bisexual or god forbid transgender
but i couldn’t do anything more exciting than wear
mismatched socks and combat boots to school
you didn’t bother to educate me on those things
and that’s why when i found out what transgender meant
through tumblr might i add
i finally knew that i wasn’t some broken toy
i’m not a freak
i am not a freak
but you make me feel like a freak

but i can’t be a girl either
because every time someone misgenders me
or calls me she or her or you introduce me
as your ******* daughter
it makes me want to rip out my insides
to show you that they have the word
boy painted on them
in blue and dripping paint
my insides are male
but i can’t be a boy
no i can’t
because i didn’t show any signs of it
growing up
i came out too late for mommy dearest to
believe or accept me
i can’t be a boy because i have a ******* ******
well you accept famous transgender people
and i am sorry that i don’t have the money to transition
i would if i could
but i’m pretty sure i’ll be dead before then anyway

i scared the dog with my sobbing and yelling
he’s still hiding in the bedroom upstairs
and i should be doing my summer school
but you have never been supportive of my schooling
so i really don’t see the ******* point
and sometimes the voices sound like you
they tell me what a disappointment i am
how i am so wrong
how you don’t love me
how you can’t love me
how i am going to hell
i am afraid to go to sleep at night
because all i do is dream about being dead
they tell me in your voice
that you would rather have me dead and a girl
than alive and a boy
and i am afraid that that is how you
really feel about me
like sorry i was ever born

i am not a girl
but you say i can’t be a boy
then i say i am not real
you are grieving a ghost
you say you want your little girl back
maybe you should have loved her more
both of you
this is for both of you
*******
you ruined the best thing either of you
has ever and will ever have
but this idea
this radical idea
that i may actually know better than either
of you what i was born to be
this is what keeps me going
late at night when i want to start
stock-piling my trazodone
maybe this time will be the charm
and then you can put her name on
my headstone and make me wear
the prettiest dress that i never would
ever wear while alive
but a corpse can’t talk
so what does it matter
i can be your little girl again
even if she is just a body

but **** that
i am going to keep on living
and yes
lopping off my ******* will solve
a lot of my problems
i am going to start t *******
even if you disown me
i have created my own little family
we are the lost boys and girls
the demon left in the presence
of your non acceptance
and i will be who i was always meant to be
a boy
my name is priestly
i am a boy
and even if you don’t accept or believe me
and that really ******* hurts
but i am good at hiding things
i believe and accept myself enough
for the both of us
and i have friends that
believe and accept me too
i am going to keep on living
because as her i was just surviving
but now finally after so many
long and hard and trying years
i am glad to be alive
i am living
as who i was meant to be
and i literally cannot believe that you
had the guts
to use the ******* gender binary on me
you ******* *** hag
and stereotype me into your little box
of blue for boys
and pink for girls

well maybe i like purple better

that was gonna be me
ya know?
well it almost was
but sometimes
i feel like it really should have been
if only i had tried hard enough

but wouldn’t you know
trazodone is actually really
hard to overdose on
so it seems safe to conclude
that when the paramedic told me
i was lucky i had woken up
he was lying

the bottom line is though
that i thought i was ready
to be that person who so
many others knew
went to school with
grew up with
but then they all would have
continued to age
while i became part of the earth again

and while i was certainly
gone for those few hours
before i woke up
soaked in sweat
tangled in my sheets and
the realization that i had failed
my heart was still beating
and when i was pulled under again
fear gripped me tighter than
my depression and
suicidal urges ever did

because i didn’t want to die
i was only sixteen years old
my sister was in the room
right next to mine
and i wondered what that would
have done to her
if she had found me
and that makes me hate myself
just that much more

but failing that
being an almost statistic
waking up
and voluntarily being admitted
into the psychiatric ward
it made me a survivor
it meant that i wanted to live
and i do
i really do

but there are so many
other scars besides the one
on my skin and possibly some
internal organs
that run like deep grooves
inside of my psyche
and i sometimes wonder
why people that want to die
that do **** themselves
are treated like they did not
want to live
when they wanted to live
the most of all

why does wanting to
have the pain stop
make them bad people?

Tuesday 4:24 pm
I woke up in a hospital bed, my wrists are in restraints.
I was told I had taken three and a half Xanax and I attempted to swallowed a bottle of Trazodone.
IVs were in my arms.
an overweight woman taking my blood pressure (it was low).
I remember looking over at my mom shaking her head whispering something to my dad. I wish I knew what they were talking about. I wish the pills had done their job.

rewind

Monday 9:09 pm
I feel the weight, the burning of his skin rubbing against my raw legs
I feel him contort my body into positions I didn't know were possible.
He pushed my face into his bed sheets,
suffocating me, I tried to moan for him to get off of me.
I woke up to a police officer shaking me- asking where
my clothes were. I wish I could have formed a sentence in that moment,
But all I could mutter from my lips was
"where am I?"
"what happened to me?'

I was brought out into the brisk March night, to see my father with his face in his palms shaking. Why was he crying?
What was so wrong.

Fast forward
Tuesday 6:02 am

I woke up the next morning in my bed- my ******* alarm blaring.
I had never been in so much pain mentally,
physically. I could still feel him inside me.
I threw on an old shirt and a pair of sweatpants laying on the floor.
Making my way to the bathroom I saw where he left his mark on me
my neck bruised from his teeth.
traces of his fingertips digging into my skin still lingered on my *******.

I remember walking out of school that Tuesday,
puking in the garbage can and sitting in my dads car as he drove me home.

Fast forward 4:26 pm
My doctor informed my parents my system was clean, that I could go home.

M, you asked me to have dinner with you and your grandparents.
It was supposed to be a harmless night- but that wasn't your intention with me, no you wanted to strip me from my dignity,
show me off to the world without my consent,
but that wasn't the only situation I didn't consent to with you.

r.h. (March 21, 2018)

I dont like confrontation.
In fact I will do almost anything to avoid it if I can
Thats probably what makes me a good manager-- because I'm able to diffuse a situation before it becomes one
That's also probably why I let the trash pile up on the patio for weeks until we recieved an eviction notice
Because I'm scared of confrontation

I'm scared to tell you it hurts me that I've done the dishes the last 3 times because you wont put in a maintenance request to fix the dishwasher but I can't because you want to be here when someone comes.
I'm scared to tell you I hate that I'm the only one who takes out the trash because you ***** and gag if you touch a trash bag
Well I'm gagging too, but it has to be done because we're adults.
I'm always so happy when I come home and find the trash to be gone only to open the pantry and find the bags there. Only to open the balcony door and find the trash there.
Now that I think about it, you always complain that you'll throw up if you do it and I think that's a form of gaslighting.
I'm scared to tell you that instead of buying supplies to make cobbler when we had no food in the house, you should have bought basic materials to eat or god forbid a plunger because your toilets been clogged for 3 weeks and you have to use mine.

I'm scared to tell you I hate your rabbit and the fact that it chewed up 4 of my phone chargers, my echo plug, my laptop cord, vaccum, and is now tearing up my carpet. Oh also the fact that it's YOUR rabbit and I had to buy you hay when you were running low, but you could buy another fish tank we dont have room for.

I'm scared to tell you these habits of yours are bothering me because you're no longer lucid and I think you're slightly addicted---but everytime your boyfriend brings that up you complain.

I'm scared of confrontation. So tonight I made 4 trips to the dumpster at 2am filling my car up with garbage bag after garbage bag because I was embarrassed of how much trash we had and I didn't want the neighbors to hear or see.

I told you I was doing it at that time expecting your help, but instead you told our guest you'd waited all day for me to do it and took a trazodone and fell asleep.

Tomorrow I can already tell I'll have to wear my braces and use my cane.

Tomorrow I'll wake with baggy eyes from a sleepless night of anger of frustration of worry of tears from the fear that comes with the confrontation of the text I sent you asking you to please take out the last of the 3 trash bags by the door.

I'm waiting for the excuses.